Noisy Ghosts
by Loselen Snowstar
Summary: Rachel Baker lived a normal life. Well, as normal as life can be when one of your best friends is a ghost. Until a fight sets her on a journey that will end at a school almost as strange as she. X2 spoilers later.


I need an honest opinion on this story. I'm somewhat attached to my character Rachel, and I want other people to like her. I know the quickest way to do that is to not make her a Mary-Sue.  
  
So I'd like if someone who is more able to look at her objectively could tell me if she's Sueish, and how to fix it.  
  
This story is told from the first person POV because I find it easier to write that way.  
  
~~~~~  
  
Prologue: Bad day  
  
My name is Rachel Baker. I am a mutant. I can hear ghosts.  
  
I first started hearing them when I was ten. In fact, it was the month before my eleventh birthday, back when I still kept a diary.  
  
It started out as a sort of quiet buzzing, one that got louder whenever I passed the graveyard. Then it progressed to the point I could tell someone was talking, but I couldn't figure out what they were saying. It was like hearing your parents in the next room, trying your hardest, but not quite being able to hear what your Christmas gift is.  
  
Just after my eleventh birthday, I started hearing them clearly. And I started talking back.  
  
There is a high concentration of ghosts in Corning, New York, my hometown. I didn't find that out until after I left, though. I considered it perfectly normal that every house had at least one ghost. I talked to all of them, and listened to their stories.  
  
There were two ghosts that resided in my home, and one that visited often. The visiting ghost was the ghost of my aunt Beth, who had died in a car crash when she was fifteen. Aunt Beth was a lot like me and we became great friends.  
  
For all that I could tell the ghosts anything, I was incredibly shy around people who were still alive. I still had one good friend though. Her name was Lisa.  
  
Lisa was the polar opposite of me. She was brave, outgoing, popular, pretty, and never had trouble in math. If she wasn't my best friend, I would have been really jealous of her. Hell, I was anyway, but that's not the point.  
  
My mutation did little except giving me a reputation for talking to myself until I was fourteen. Then my world turned upside down.  
  
I remember that day like it just happened five minutes ago.  
  
I was walking home from school. Lisa was staying behind for a D.I. team meeting. (How she managed to stand up on that stage and do Improv was beyond me).  
  
I felt the coolness on my shoulders that meant Beth had put her arm there.  
  
"Hey, how's my favorite niece?" She asked happily.  
  
" Dreading her Geometry test," I replied honestly, "I don't know how I'm going to get through it."  
  
" Divine Intervention, just like all the others, right?" Beth was grinning, I didn't have to se her to know that.  
  
"I really don't know how much longer I can depend on the grace of God to get me through math."  
  
"Hey, Schitzo!" I heard someone call. I knew who it was. A boy named Duane who had been making my life miserable since third grade. He called me Schitzo because I always seemed to be talking to myself. In reality, I was talking to a ghost, but that doesn't matter.  
  
"Hello, Stumpy," I replied. He was short, so it actually had some weight.  
  
He ignored it, "Hey look, the circus is in town, and one of the freaks escaped!"  
  
"You know, Duane, if you're gonna insult me, at least come up with something original."  
  
"Who said I was talking about you? I was referring to your freak brother!"  
  
Did I say I was shy? Well, until you insulted Cody, I was. My little brother was quiet, and shy to the point of it being a mental disorder. He couldn't talk to strangers, and so people thought he was retarded. He wasn't.  
  
I was very protective of Cody, though in retrospect, that might not have been the best thing for him. I'd inadvertently trained him so that he could just come running to me instead of learning to deal with his own problems.  
  
But I didn't know that then, so when I heard Duane's comment about Cody, I nailed him with an upper cut to the jaw.  
  
He replied by punching me in the gut. I must have been crazy to take him on. Duane may be small, but he was way better at fighting than me, and could have easily beaten the crap out of me if Beth hadn't done what she did then.  
  
Beth stepped in and started fighting for me. I couldn't see her, but by the way Duane was getting smacked around by what seemed to be thin air, it was obvious she was getting him good.  
  
After the hit that sent him flying almost into the street, he looked at me, with fear, something I had never seen on him before, "Stay away from me, you mutie freak!" he shouted, and ran off.  
  
I looked around, suddenly realizing the number of people that had seen the fight. I knew all of them.  
  
'Oh, shit!' I thought and ran home, crying all the way.  
  
***  
  
I got inside where my Mom was cooking dinner.  
  
"Rachel?" she asked, seeing my tears, "What happened?"  
  
"They know," I sobbed, hugging her, "They know!"  
  
"Who knows?" she asked, "What do they know?"  
  
"Everybody!" I cried, "They know!"  
  
That was the only thing she could get out of me as I cried onto her shoulder. She hugged me. I could feel Beth put her arms around me, but this time, it wasn't at all reassuring.  
  
~~~~~  
  
So, what'd you think of it? I'd really like to get a blunt, honest answer, if possible. 


End file.
